Conservatism Killing the GOP?

As President Obama enters his second term, what "mandate" does he enjoy? His liberal media enablers are boldly declaring that somehow his four-point victory was a "shellacking," and the Republican Party is in danger of "ceasing to be a national party." They're very blunt about what's killing the GOP: conservatism.

It's not helping the GOP that some of its conservative leaders are acting thoroughly intimidated.

On the Feb. 10 "Meet the Press," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the Republicans needed to "connect our conservative principles with helping people and making their life work again." This only invited NBC anchor David Gregory to interrupt. "But Leader, it's core beliefs. ... There are core beliefs of the Republican Party that the polls show were rejected by a national electorate that you want to try to recapture some of if you're going to get to become a national party."

This is what they're transparently trying to do: remove any obstacles to the Obama agenda by remaking the GOP into a 1970s-style Me-Too Republican Party.

Gregory claimed the Republicans are in danger because 2012 exit polls (conducted for the liberal TV networks) showed that "60 percent said income tax rates should either go up on all Americans or those with incomes above $250,000, 59 percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 65 percent favored giving illegal immigrants a path to a legal status."

Notice the games they're playing here. Saying there is 60 percent support for raising taxes for all and just for those over $250,000 blurs two very different positions. Saying there is 59 percent support for abortion in all or most cases again is two different positions — and omits that a majority of Americans now call themselves "pro-life." And giving illegal immigrants a path to legal status is not citizenship.

Let's look at it another way. Obama and the Democrats want everyone's taxes raised. They want 100 percent federally funded abortions until the moment of birth. They want citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants. This is not what the vast majority of Americans believe. So which party is out of sync?

And surprise, surprise, there are the exit poll questions themselves. Take immigration, where they asked this either-or question: Should illegal immigrants "working in the United States" be "offered a chance to apply for legal status" or simply "deported to the country where they came from"?

Can we imagine a different outcome if they asked about "border control"? The latest ABC/Washington Post poll found 83 percent say yes to "stricter border control to try and reduce illegal immigration." Again, it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are out of sync.

NPR loved this game, too. On the Feb. 11 "All Things Considered," they brought on Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review and author of the completely discredited 2009 tome, "The Death of Conservatism," published 14 months before the conservative victories of 2010. Tanenhaus remains impervious to facts and has now written a slimy article for The New Republic proclaiming, "Why the GOP Is and Will Continue to be the Party of White People."

NPR anchor Robert Siegel never mentioned the silly book title and failed to notice that the New Republic is now owned by the social media director of the 2008 Obama-Biden machine. Siegel did mention that there were a few non-white GOP stars with names like Jindal, Rubio, Cruz and Haley. Tanenhaus said none of that mattered. Conservatism is death.

"What the country has seen throughout Barack Obama's presidency so far is a handful of extremely conservative Republicans in the House who oppose everything he does. There seems to be a kind of disrespect or indifference to the notion of majority rule." This now goes beyond silly. Is Tanenhaus unaware that the Republicans rule a majority of the House?

He continued: "And until the moment comes when the party itself, not just by presenting attractive (minority) candidates, but until they stop portraying the federal government as this invasive, predatory force, they're going to continue to alienate large segments of this population, many of whom are people of color who've profited from government or who found government to be helpful and useful in their lives."

Republicans have to stop portraying the government as invasive and predatory — like the divisive language written by those white conservative losers who signed the Declaration of Independence and ratified the Constitution.

As usual, our media, like Obama, sees an inevitably socialist America in our future. To accomplish this, they must first crush the conservative movement. Game on.

L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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Comments

Sir; ...It is as wrong to call the republican party conservative as it is to think conservatism might be killing them...
First of all, all people are conservative... It is a human trait... And those people who make up the democratic party are trying to conserve a notion of government, and make the notion of government that actually works for average people a reality... And we have been more or less a society with a functioning government that did at times serve the needs of the people, and produce good...
What the republicans call conservatism is reactionism... They stand for a government that holds to principals absolutely, and does not answer to the people... While some absolutist kings found their heads on a chopping block, and with good reason, the republicans want to follow in the same path, which is vastly older than they...Our world is animated by the conflict of humanity over whether it will be guided by human sense and reason, or by ideas once thought without consideration to be perfect, and in perfect relation to reality... The middle ages which carried the ideas of a former age into the present will not be over until the tyranny of ideas is over... Democracy is built not so much upon ideas, but as upon self evident truths, such as the general equality of all mankind, and our general desire for, and right to happiness and life...
The principals the republican party holds as absolute and unfailing are failing before our eyes, and their reaction is the reaction of all tyrants and idealists: To blame the people... It is not their ideas that are wrong, they say: but the people, who have no right to an opinion on the subject...
The republican party is aptly named because they are certainly as anti democratic as the institution of our government... Our constitution invested a minority of the population with the majority of the party, and the government went even further to deny the people democracy...Now the government is on the verge of self destruction over the conflict of ideas and methods enshrined in our constitution; but based upon its principals, how can the republican party morne??? Their very existence goddamns the power of the people, and denies sensual reasoning its proper object... They do not hold to the ideas of our founding fathers, but seek the authority of God himself, and of Plato, the darling of the early church...I see the reality becoming evident to all those who have for so long suffered the blame for their own failure and the failure of society to deliver on its promises... There is nothing so stupid or obnoxious as a failed idea that people insist upon digging up like a corpse of some loved thing to show around...
Ideas are just ideas... Principals are just principals... If they fail it is because they are wrong and conflict with human nature... The republican party is not dying of conservatism because the democratic party is more conservative, but only less idealistic... The republican party is not conservative, but reactionary, wanting to turn back time to the middle ages, with industry, and is devoted to failed principals... They should not have office... They should be hooted out of town and jailed if they return...And the same should happen to democrats to the extent that they hold to failed ideas when they injure living people...
If you think about how much injustice was built into the consitution having a goal of justice, so much so that we had to fight a bloody and costly war to relieve ourselves of just on portion of that injustice, you can see what a failure it is...Aristotle said governments are formed for good, and for the republicans that good is found in economic anarchy... But the anarchy of the economy has resulted in a positive tyranny of business over the lives of people -which government is thought consitutionally unable to govern, or remedy...Here you see the conflict of ideas with sense and reason, that sense and reason must judge by what is obviously a failure, what the republicans promote as a perfect idea, a principal... They are not conservative; they are reactionary... They are not reasonable... The republicans are insane and tyranical in their idealism, and the fact that vast numbers are prisoners of the same insanity only makes them dangerous....
Thanks...Sweeney